Strange Thoughts in the Middle of the Night

Not my illustration, of course, but eerily similar to the thoughts running rampant around that timeframe.

You’d think with two weeks to muse over a topic, I’d have more than enough to write about on this blog today, but my mind is a blank. Or, rather, it’s swarming with things that I’m either not interested or inclined to write about. Most are kinda like those weird 3AM thoughts (see image above) that are insomnia-inducing worrisome until the dawn light scatters them like roaches.

And then it occurred to me this may not necessarily be a bad thing, as it’s not a lack of writing, it’s just a blog topic that’s drawing a blank. There’s no effect on my fiction writing in the slightest–I’ve been able to sit down first thing (after feeding the cat and getting my coffee, of course) and belt out more than the minimum words needed to meet the quotas and deadlines. The first of the three solidly-landed projects nears its end* and seems to be gaining momentum. Kinda like the story itself, racing to the conclusion (albeit only of the first part of the heroes’ journey).

Unlike those thoughts, however, sometimes the dreams hit you. Most of the time they go away, easily forgotten, but sometimes they stick with you all day. I had one of those recently, where I was in Washington, DC visiting with “friends” (people whom I seemed to know well but are unfamiliar outside of Morpheus’ theater) and as I was preparing to leave for home (in PA, in reality and in dreams), I discovered my car keys were missing. And my purse. And my phone. I had to borrow money just to make a phone call (yes, it was a pay phone with coins in the dream) to my house only to realize I didn’t know any of my family members’ phone numbers so someone could bring my spare key and I could drive home. That part is more true than I’d prefer to admit, seeing that it’s no longer a “necessity” nowadays–until it is. Other strange details abounded in the dream, some of them still vivid but meaningless to that one thread. Maybe a warning, a wake-up call to commit them to memory again.

It does work. After all, I can still recite all the phone numbers we had when I was a kid without hesitation.

*Eater of Dreams‘ First Installment, planned for completion by the end of July and clocking in at more than 130k words. Once it passes the 30 day mark for the final episode, it will be released as a full volume through the regular channels (KU). The other two are my cyberpunk noir detective story, which is all ready for final type-in and polish, and the overwhelming choice of my newsletter readers, the second installment of the Umbra series, which is already written–and the third is as well–but whose revision will commence once the CNDS is done. Or until I’ve met my revision quota on that one and need to change up my pace a bit.